September 20, 2011 – Uncle Bill’s Postcards

Last month, on August 9^th, I received a package. My friend Karen sent me a box that contained some of her late Uncle Bill’s old postcards. The postcards were mostly from Berlin in the 1930’s. There were images of the city before it was destroyed during the war, some creepy images of Hitler and a quite a few images of the Olympic Stadium and other buildings from the 1936 Olympics. Uncle Bill did not pick-up these postcards while on vacation. Uncle Bill was with the 82^nd Airborne as part of the occupation. On the back of one postcard of the stadium, in Uncle Bill’s handwriting, was the note, “Was here, Sunday Aug., 9, 45”.

World War II was already over in Europe on the day that Uncle Bill was at the Olympic Stadium. Before the 82^nd Airborne occupied Berlin, Uncle Bill had landed at Normandy in a glider. He fought at the Battle of the Bulge and he was with the 82nd Airborne when they liberated the Wöbbelin Concentration Camp. Uncle Bill was awarded both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. During World War II, so many people were part of the effort to defeat fascism and so many fought and millions gave their lives for freedom. All of their efforts should be remembered and honored, but still, some of them were extraordinary, they were heroes. Uncle Bill was one of those heroes.

I have chosen this day in particular to honor Uncle Bill. Because today is the day that the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy officially takes effect. One’s sexual orientation is irrelevant in their ability to serve their country. It just doesn’t matter. Thousands of gay and lesbian Americans have served their country, and like Uncle Bill, they had to serve in silence. Uncle Bill, like so many of his generation, fought for our freedom. Today, the country he fought for is a more just place where the words liberty and justice for all have moved closer to the truth.

August 14, 2011 – Die Mauer

50 years ago this week, a wall started going up in Berlin. The wall was “permanent” and the city was divided. And then, in less than 30 years, the wall came down. Of course, there is much more to the story of the Berlin Wall, but one of the ideas I always take from it is that the lines we put on maps are never permanent. I have a pile of atlases that I recycle for my art. It did not take long to find four maps of Berlin for this piece. Before World War II, post-war, then divided with West Berlin like an island and finally a modern map showing the German capital.

March 5, 2011 – Rosa Luxemburg

I find it interesting to learn about people who were famous and considered very important during their lifetimes yet somehow have been nearly written out of history. They might have been artists, composers, writers or political leaders. Rosa Luxemburg is one of those “forgotten” historical figures. A century ago, she was one of the world’s most popular and influential political leaders.

When we read a list of the names of major 20th Century leaders, the list includes people like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mao, Churchill, Lenin, etc., Rosa Luxemburg most definitely should be included. In 2011 one probably needs to be a fairly serious scholar to be familiar with her legacy. Even all my lefty college professors never mentioned her. I first learned about Rosa Luxemburg from Margarethe von Trotta’s 1986 film.

During her lifetime, Rosa Luxemburg was big — very big. She attracted huge crowds wherever she spoke. I’ve often heard it repeated that she was as big as Lenin. She was a socialist thinker, militant anti-war activist and a major leader in worker’s revolutionary movements in Europe. After World War I, Rosa Luxemburg was assassinated in January 1919 in Berlin during the chaos of the attempted socialist revolution.

One could write a thesis (someone probably has) on why history has forgotten Rosa Luxemburg. And there is that line about history being written by the victors, but ultimately I feel Rosa Luxemburg has been disregarded because of her gender. No matter the ideology, we have a long way to go to recognize women as leaders equal to men.

In the post-Soviet world, many are quick to disregard any thinking with a hint of Marxism. I think it’s quite a mistake to throw out the red baby with the bathwater. There is a great deal to learn from history and about the state of the current world by reading philosophers like Luxemburg. Some of the things Rosa Luxemburg wrote a century ago are quite relevant today. Even a quick search online finds a quote of hers that could just as well be about Egypt or Libya today as it was about Europe a century ago:

The modern proletarian class does not carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight.